'You mean the chapel. So that's your persuasion. Now Mr. Reddin is such a sta'nch Charchman.'

Reddin looked exceedingly discomfited.

'And when did this happy event take place?'

A cat with a mouse was nothing to Miss Clomber with a sinner.

At this point Reddin saw, as he put it, what she was driving at. He was very sleepy, having been out all day and eaten a large tea, and he never combated a physical desire. So he cut across a remark of Amelia's to the effect that marriage with the _right_ woman so added to a man's comfort, and said:

'I'm not married if that's what you mean.'

'Then who--' said Miss Clomber, feeling that she had him now.

'My keep,' he said baldly. He thought they would go at that. But they sat tight. They had, as Miss Clomber said afterwards, a soul to save.

They both realized how pleasant might be the earthly lot of one engaged in this heavenly occupation.

'Hah! You call a spade a spade, Mr. Reddin,' said Miss Clomber, with a frosty glance at Hazel; 'you are not, as our dear Browning has it, "mealy mouthed".'

'In the breast of a true woman,' said Amelia authoritatively, as a fishmonger might speak of fish, 'is no room for blame.'

'True woman be damned!'

Miss Clomber saw that for to-day the cause was lost.

At this point Miss Amelia uttered a piercing yell. The hedgehog, encouraged by being left to itself, and by the slight dusk that had begun to gather in the northerly rooms of Undern--where night came early--had begun to creep about. Surreptitiously guided by Hazel's foot, it had crept under Amelia's skirt and laid its cold inquiring head on her ankle, thinly clad for conquest.

Hazel went off into peals of laughter, and Miss Amelia hated her more than before.

Vessons, in the kitchen, shook his head.

'I never heerd the like of the noise there's been since that gel come.

Never did I!' he said.

'Leave him!' said Miss Clomber to Hazel on the doorstep. She was going to add 'for my sake,' but substituted 'his.' 'You are causing him to sin,' she added.

'Be I?' Hazel felt that she was always causing something wrong. Then she sighed. 'I canna leave 'im.'

'Why not?'

'He wunna let me.'

With that phrase, all unconsciously, she took a most ample revenge on the Clombers; for it rang in their ears all night, and they knew it was true.

Chapter 29

On Sunday Vessons put his resolve--to go to the Mountain and reveal Hazel's whereabouts--into practice. If he had waited, gossip would have done it for him. He set out in the afternoon, having 'cleaned' himself and put on his pepper-and-salt suit, buff leggings, red waistcoat, and the jockey-like cap he affected. He arrived at the back door just as Martha was taking in supper.

'Well?' said Martha, who wanted to have her meal and go home.

'Well?' said Vessons.

'When I say "well," I mean what d'you want?'

'Allus say what you mean.'

'Who d'you want? Me?'

'The master.'

'The master's out.'

'I'll wait, then.'

He sat down by the fire, and looked so fixedly at Martha as she poured out her tea that she offered him some in self-defence. He drew up his chair. Now that he was receiving hospitality, he felt that he must be agreeable and complimentary.

'Single, I suppose?' he asked.

'Ah,' said Martha coyly, 'I'm single; but I've no objection to matrimony.'

'Oh!' Vessons spoke sourly, 'I'm sorry for you, then.'

'Maybe you're a married man yourself?'

'Never.'

'Better late than never!'

'If I've kep' out of it in the heat of youth, is it likely I'll go into it in the chilly times? Maiden I am to my dying day!'

'But if you was to meet a nice tidy woman as had a bit saved?' To Martha, a bridegroom of sixty-five seemed better than nothing.

'If I met a score nice tidy women, if I met a gross nice tidy women, it 'ud be no different.'

'Not if she could make strong ale?'

'I can make ale myself. No woman shall come into my kitchen for uncounted gold.'

Martha sighed as she changed the subject.

'What do you want the master for?'

'Never tell your tidings,' said Vessons, 'till you meet the king.'

'Martha!'